Gaming Hacks

Reorient and Align Your Arcade Monitor

Make the most of your arcade monitor.

Though JAMMA ( [Hack #58] ) has taken much of the guesswork and incompatibility out of arcade games, it’s not perfect. The first time you switch out Frogger for Xevious, you might discover that no matter how common the controls, the monitor orientation is too different. Sure, you could play with your head turned sideways, but that’s not exactly healthy. Fortunately, there are options.

If you never play games of different orientation, maybe you play games of different resolution. There are solutions for that, too.

Monitor Orientation

First, look carefully at the orientation of your monitor, because arcade games have either horizontally or vertically inclined monitors. The vast majority of arcade titles use a horizontal monitor orientation. If you’re buying a cabinet and you can’t inspect the insides in great detail, choose one that’s already set to a horizontal inclination, especially if you don’t know how easily you can change it.

Software rotation

If you launch MAME from the command line, use the -ror or -rol options to rotate the screen clockwise (to the right) or counterclockwise (to the left), respectively.

If you prefer a frontend (see [Hack #11] ), you may have options to control monitor rotation. For example, in Mame32, use the Options → Default Options menu. In the lower-left corner, you’ll see monitor rotation and flipping options. Choose your orientation, apply the changes, and play!

Physical rotation ...